2018 Fields Medal Winners: Caucher Birkar

2018 Fields Medal Winner: Caucher Birkar
An astounding journey from a war-torn land to the pinnacle of his field.

“It’s not easy to be a Kurd,” inventive mathematician Caucher Birkar says in tracing his unlikely journey from war-torn Kurdistan to a vaunted teaching and research position at Cambridge University. “And there is a famous saying that the Kurds have no friends but the mountains.”

In revealing Birkar as a recipient of a 2018 Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics, we set out to show not only the nonstop workings of his remarkable mind — but to subtly remind viewers of the worth of all people in a time of fervent nationalism and government intransigence toward the plight of refugees.

One in a series. See more of the project here.

 Filmed by Lance Murphey. Written and produced by John Hubbell. Edited by Jennifer Smart. Co-produced by Lance Murphey, Philip Yam and Meredith Hogan. Score by Jonathan Kirkscey.

 Clients: International Mathematics Union, Simons Foundation